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How Cold Water Immersion Tubs Are Protecting Local Athletes This Summer

By Tianna Jenkins

It’s getting hotter and hotter outside as summer approaches fast. And already, young athletes are practicing in exhausting temperatures.

A local foundation has taken it upon itself to protect these athletes.

“They are already playing their spring games and it’s hot and it’s humid and they cannot cool off so safety has to be first priority,” said Laurie Giordano of the Zach Martin Memorial Foundation.

Thanks to the foundation, student athletes at Lemon Bay, Charlotte, and Bonita Springs High School now have another way to keep cool during hot summer practices and workouts.

“So the cold water immersion tubs that were donated by the Zach Martin Foundation are 150 gallon tubs that can be used in cases of extreme heat illness or heat stroke,” she said.

The tubs provide safety to the players. The goal is for the water to stay on the field under a tent so that the water temperature is cooler than the air temperature, said Giordano.

“When you have heat stroke happening to one of your student athletes the first thing you have to do is get that core temperature down,” she said.

Giordano lost her son, Zach last summer after he collapsed at a football workout. She found out her son could have survived if he was treated within the first five to ten minutes.

But even if he had survived, Giordano says she would still be doing all she could to help.

“If he had survived, I would still be standing here because he would want to do the exact same thing. Because he was a protector,” she said, “Personally if I can spare any mother or father then that’s what I have to do.”